Previewing the Texas Longhorns: Part I - Coaching and Offense
by AHMB on Sep 13, 2011 4:45 PM PDT
in Football
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PrintThe Longhorns come to the Rose Bowl and represent the first team of the year that has more talent on the roster than our UCLA Bruins. The Longhorn roster is deep and highly touted. Their recruiting classes are generally in the Top 10 annually per Scout.com. However, like our Bruins, the recruiting success hasn't necessarily translated into wins of late.
Texas and UCLA do have a history, which has been fairly one-sided. Route 66, anyone? What about the following year? Last year, the 1-2 Bruins traveled to Austin and beat the #7 ranked 3-0 Longhorns 34-12 in a lopsided game.
Coaching Staff
Mack Brown is in his 14th season at Texas. He's compiled a 135-34 record, including the 2005 National Championship. Despite the success, things have not all been well in Texas for Brown. His 2010 team struggled to a 4-8 record, easily Brown's worst in Austin.
Coach Brown's staff went over a major facelift this year. Will Muschamp decided to take his talents to Florida, after serving 2 years as defensive coordinator and "coach in waiting". Replacing Muschamp is Manny Diaz, a very capable defensive coordinator who spent the 2010 season in Starkville helping improve the Mississippi St. defense under Dan Mullen. Diaz is the son of former Miami Mayor, Manny Diaz, and was tutored under Mickey Andrews and Chuck Amato at Florida St. and North Carolina St. between 1999-2006. Prior to coaching at Florida St., Diaz worked at ESPN, and had not played collegiate football. After leaving North Carolina St., Diaz spent four seasons at Middle Tennessee St. before being brought in by Mullen. While Diaz may be short in the tooth, he is aggressive and likes to bring what he calls, "tactical pressure". He runs a 4-3 base defense, but will use an array of blitzes by both linebackers and safeties.
Offensively, Texas replaced offensive coordinator Greg Davis with two coordinators, Major Applewhite and Bryan Harsin. Applewhite is familiar to most college football fans as the gutty quarterback who competed with Chris Simms at Texas for the starting quarterback position. Following his brief flirtation with the NFL, Applewhite jumped into coaching as a graduate assistant at Texas before getting his break as offensive coordinator at Rice in 2006. After only one season, he was hand picked by Nick Saban to run the offense and served as offensive coordinator for the Alabam Crimson Tide in 2007. After a mediocre season, Applewhite returned to Texas as an Assistant Head Coach and Running Backs Coach, and added Co-offensive Coordinator this season.
Quarterbacks
Texas just announced that it will use So. Case McCoy Fr. David Ash at quarterback, relegating last year's starter, Jr. Garret Gilbert, to third string. Neither McCoy nor Ash redshirted (neither did Gilbert, for that matter), and quarterback appears to be Texas' weak link on offense. While it appears Texas does not plan to use Gilbert, I would not rule the possibility out at this point. Last weak's passing attack against was anemic, gaining only 123 yards on 12-20 passing, including 2 interceptions by Gilbert which led to use of the McCoy-Ash combination.
Case McCoy is the smallest of the quarterbacks at 6'2 200 lbs, the least heralded of the quarterbacks (3 Star vs. 4 and 5 Star), and has the weakest arm of the three- yet he finds himself QB1. Why? Well, partially by default, and partially because he is smart, moves around the pocket, and has the "gamer" intangible. Like his elder brother, Colt, he's extremely accurate in short passing situations and capable of moving the chains on scrambles.
David Ash is bigger (6'3 215 lbs.) and was used as the primary rushing quarterback against BYU (9 carries for 36 yards). He's not an explosive athlete by any means, but he has decent athleticism and size.
Garrett Gilbert is the opposite of McCoy. He has great size (6'4 218 lbs.) and a powerful arm. He looks the part. Unfortunately, following his relief appearance for McCoy in the National Championship Game against Alabama in 2010, Gilbert suffered through a poor season last year and hasn't started well this year.
Running Backs
The lack of production from the heralded quarterbacks may be head scratching, but the lack of production from Texas' stable of highly touted running backs is downright mystifying. Five star all-universe Fr. Malcolm Brown has officially taken over the starting spot. The 6'0 215 lbs. is a prototypical tailback, equally adept at running between or outside the tackles. He does not possess elite top end speed, but he has enough to hit a homerun. For the season, he has 154 yards on 30 carries, but has yet to score.
The rest of the stable is an impressive blend of power and speed. Sr. Cody Johnson provides the power. At 5'11 250 lbs., he is a load. He did not play in last year's game in Austin, but he should see plenty of playing time this year as Texas' short yardage back. He ran for two touchdowns against BYU, bringing his season total to 3. The speed can be found in Jr. DJ Monroe. The 5'9 175 lbs. scatback may not get many carries, but he makes the most of his opportunities. He's gaining 10.1 yards per attempt on the ground, and 14 yards per catch through the air.
The second "primary" back will be filled by Sr. Foshwitt "Fozzy" Whittaker, who somehow still has eligibility despite seemingly being on the roster since Vince Young was around. The 5'10 198 lbs. tailback has struggled this season, gaining only 37 yards on 13 carries with a long of 7. The struggles may be due to the fact that his touches have been limited due to the amount of talent in the backfield, but he has much more talent than his numbers would indicate.
Wide Receivers and Tight Ends
Another talented group that simply has not produced at the expected level, the Texas wide receiving corps brings three deep talent across the board. Of course, wide receivers are dependant on quarterbacks getting them the ball, and the Texas quarterbacks simply have not been able to do so this season at a dependable rate.
Against Rice, So. Mike Davis racked up 115 yards and a touchdown on 3 catches. The 6'2 186 lbs. wideout was shutout against BYU. Davis will start at flanker and will be backed up by two entirely different receivers; RS. Fr. John Harris, a 6'3 206 lbs. load and 5'11 175 lbs. DeSean Hayes. Harris has caught two balls for 13 yards, and Hayes has yet to catch a ball this season.
So. Darius White starts at the other wideout position after Malcolm Williams left the team in the offseason. At 6'3 200 lbs., White brings good size and excellent leaping ability to the table. He has only caught 3 balls this season for 28 yards. White will be backed up by 6'0 190 Rs. Fr. Chris Jones, who has yet to catch a ball this season.
Texas does most of its damage in the slot, where Jr. Marquise Goodwin and Fr. Jaxon Shipley do their work. Shipley has been a pleasant surprise this year. The 6'1 185 lbs. younger brother of Jason has 5 catches for 93 yards and a touchdown on the year. The diminutive Goodwin (5'9 177 lbs.) only has 2 catches for 10 yards after catching 31 balls for 324 yards last year, but he is considered by some to be the fastest man in college football and is always a threat inside.
At tight end, Texas starts 6'3 218 lbs. Jr. DJ Grant, who continues his return from knee injury. Also look out for 6'3 240 lbs. So. Dominique Jones and 6'3 238 lbs. RS Fr. Darius Terrell. Interestingly, none of these three were actually recruited at tight end. Grant and Terrell were listed at wide receiver, and Jones was listed at defensive end.
Offensive Line
Texas returns only two offensive lineman from last year's starting group; SR C David Snow (6'4 295 lbs.) and So. RG Mason Walters (6'6 305). The other starting lineman consist of a senior and two sophomores; Sr. LG Tray Allen (6'4 310 lbs.). and So.'s LT Tray Hopkins (6'4 290 lbs.) and RT Paden Kelley (6'7 290 lbs.). The line may not wow you with size, which is the biggest reason that Texas has had problems running the ball over the years. They are all, however, immensely talented. Walters and Allen are former 5 star recruits, while Snow, Kelley, and Hopkins are all former 4 star recruits.
Texas' back-ups are equally heralded. So. Garrett Porter (6'6 305 lbs.) and RS Fr. Dominic Espinosa (6'4 295 lbs.) will back-up the three middle line positions. At the tackle spots, Jr. Luke Poehlmann (6'7 285 lbs.) will back-up both LT and RT.
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Awesome work!
I think this game will rest on what the Texas O-Line does & how our D-Line responds. We have to put their QB on his ass.
PS –
Will Muschamp decided to take his talents to Florida, after serving X years as defensive coordinator and “coach in waiting”
He was there for 2 years
great write up
It will be interesting to see how Tresey takes advantage of the QB toss up. I really hope that the coaching staff has been holding back purposely… It’s time the D-line breaks through!!!!
Great write up
It’s nice to get a micro-view of the game and pick apart the pieces. When fans look at it from the macro perspective, they lose hope. They think that the recent UCLA fball team (with all its losses) will be unable to match up with the historically powerful Texas football team. However, knowing their situation with the qb shuffle, that certain players are struggling, and that they’ve had some coaching changes certainly gives me the feeling that this is going to be a dog fight.
And that fight, as impaulv and MathBruin have mentioned, is going to be in the trenches. Can our D-line stop the run and can our O-line open up holes like it did last year? I certainly hope so.
GO BRUINS!!
Thanks for the good work, AHMB
It is worth noting, I think, that Texas has started slowly in both of its games this year, but has come on strong in the second half. They dominated the fourth quarter against BYU, if winning by one point can be said to be dominating. They did get some alignment and false start penalties, probably because of the new offense, so they are not running things perfectly yet, themselves. We certainly need to prepare for Case McCoy’s accurate short-passing attack as well as David Ash running the option and, of course, their usual offense with Gilbert. I mean, they have invested a lot of time with him taking first-team snaps. I think they intend to use him. Our defense, with all its apparent problems, is going to be challenged. It is time for them to step up, as we said many times last year. They are going to be a better offense than we faced last year, that’s for sure. They do have a lot of young players, so maybe that will help our cause, since they are on the road. Mack Brown seems to be giving the impression that his coordinators have a lot of freedom and responsibility for game planning and management. He spent most of his time at the BYU game running up and down the sidelines acting like a cheerleader. I find that hard to buy. He remembers last year and he intends to come out here and sock it to us. If we don’t stand up and fight back, it could get ugly. They have said that they want to start fast this week. They expect us to run straight at them.
One thing — they made major adjustments at halftime last week. In short, they coached.
Is that fair? Would we do that? I ask you.
Hearing short passing attack
…makes me shiver. Hope we can finally adjust and see some pressure from the DBs
by shipphappens on Sep 13, 2011 7:34 PM PDT via mobile reply actions
Gotta have our DB's play a lot tighter
Dare the weak-armed QB to beat us with the big play and put our corners on islands to have them earn their keep. With a guy like Case McCoy starting there is no excuse to get burned underneath play after play.
Oh UCLA you sweet bitch, you've BRUINed me for anything else.
We have enough lawyers in the BN that there should be no excuses
What we need is to have DB’s playing right in the wide receivers’ faces and more DBs playing 10 yards off them. I want to know why the collective legal staff at the BN has not found a loophole in the rules that would allow us to have 15 or 16 guys on the field at the same time. It would surely help our defense on all those short routes, and could possibly confuse the offense.
I don’t have access to the NCAA rule book, but some of you other lawyers should get right on this.
If we play like the high school
team i watched play SJS things could get ugly. We need to be super aggressive on D and let it all hang out on offense. I guess right now all we can do is hope for the best.
Man I’m already depressed and it’s only Tuesday. Guess I’ll have another and call it a night. Good night folks and Go Bruins….
"Success is never final, Failure is never fatal. It's Courage that counts" - John Wooden.
i know this is about O but....
i’ve watched Manny Diaz clinics before, and he is heavy on the Zone blitz. with our quarterbacks, i worry that not recognizing d-linemen dropping in coverage will hurt us. he may be young but hes a great young coach with a great future, hopefully CRN and CMJ have an answer for his scheme
Manny Diaz is a terrific coach
No doubt he is going to look to sic his athletes on our QBs and TBs and try to crush us at the point of attack.
by Nestor on Sep 14, 2011 5:26 AM PDT via mobile up reply actions
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